The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win

by Jeff Haden

There is only one recipe for gaining motivation: success. Specifically, the dopamine hits we get when we observe ourselves making progress. Not huge, life-changing successes. Those come all too infrequently, if ever. If you want to stay motivated, if you want to stay on track, if you want to keep making progress toward the things you hope to achieve, the key is to enjoy small, seemingly minor successes—but on a regular basis.

That’s why motivation isn’t something you have. Motivation is something you get, from yourself, automatically, from feeling good about

achieving small successes.

Success is a process. Success is repeatable and predictable. Success has less to do with hoping and praying and strategizing than with diligently doing (after a little strategizing, sure): doing th...

A slice of satisfaction, fulfillment, and happiness can be found in the achievement . . . but the real source of consistent, lasting happiness lies in the process.

My grandfather wasn’t involved in the process. Granted, he bought the horse . . . but then he jumped to the end. He skipped all the steps in between: training the horse, conditioning the horse, developing the horse’s speed slowly but surely, teaching it not just how to run but how to race. He didn’t give himself the chance to enjoy the daily doses of fulfillment that come from engaging in the process.

Incredibly successful people set a goal and then focus all their attention on the process necessary to achieve that goal. They set a goal and then, surprisingly, they forget the goal.

Sure, the goal is still out there. But what they care about most is what they need to do today—and when they accomplish that, they are happy about today. They feel good about today.

They feel good about themselves because they’ve accomplished what they set out to do today, and that sense of accomplishment gives them all the motivation they need to do what they need to do when tomorrow comes—because success, even t...

When you savor the small victories, you get to feel good about yourself every day, because you no longer feel compelled to compare the distance between here and there. You don’t have to wait for “someday” to feel good about yours...

To accomplish anything worthwhile, and especially to achieve a goal others say is impossible, you have to work your ass off. There are no shortcuts. The only way is the hard way.

Real motivation comes after you start. Motivation isn’t the result of hearing a speech or watching a movie or crisping your soles. Motivation isn’t passive; motivation is active.

Why? Because once you get started, once you get active and start doing something—doing not just anything but something you know will get you one step closer to your goal—the process gets easier. Motivation kicks in because you’ve gotten started. A really cool virtuous cycle—one we’ll look at in detail a little later—kicks in. You feel good because you’re engaged and involved.

You feel motivated because you took action. Motivation is a result, not a precondition. You don’t need motivation to break a sweat. Break a sweat and you’ll feel motivated.

Once you start, it’s easy to keep going. The act of getting out of the house to go for a jog is often harder than actually running the five miles you planned. The act of sitting down at your desk to start writing a proposal is often harder than putting together twenty pages of material. The ac...

Starting is hard because “motivation” doesn’t make it easy to start. Starting provides...

Speeches don’t provide lasting motivation. Progress provides lasting motivation.

Hide from your weaknesses, and you’ll always be weak. Accept your weaknesses and work to improve them, and you’ll eventually be stronger—and more motivated to keep improving.

Confidence comes from preparation. Hesitation, anxiety, fear . . . Those feelings don’t come from some deep, dark, irrational place inside you. The anxiety you feel—the lack of confidence you feel—comes from feeling unprepared. Once you realize that you can prepare yourself, that you can develop techniques to do whatever you seek to do well, that whatever you hope to achieve is ultimately a craft that you can learn to do better and better and better, and that any skills you currently lack you can learn, you naturally become more confident as you become more prepared.

That’s why motivation and confidence gained in one aspect of your life can spill over into other aspects of your life. When you feel good about yourself in one way—when you achieve some degree of success in one aspect of your life—you tend to feel better about other parts of your life as well. After all, if you can do one thing well, you can do lots of things well. You realize that all you have to do is find the right process, work the process, and enjoy the feeling of success and resulting motivation you get from constant improvement (because if you follow the right process, you will constantly improve).

My definition of “grit” is: the ability to work hard and respond resiliently to failure and adversity; the inner quality that enables individuals to work hard and stick to their long-term passions and goals.

Successful people are great at delaying gratification. Successful people are great at withstanding temptation. Successful people are great at overcoming fear in order to do what they need to do. (Of course, that doesn’t mean they aren’t scared; that means they’re brave. There’s a huge difference.) Successful people don’t just prioritize; they consistently keep doing what they have decided is most important.

Kirk sums it up this way: “All it really takes is a desire to keep on doing it. Finding a passion comes from sticking with it, and that is easy when you work hard to keep getting better. And before long, you realize you’ve gotten passionate about the passion.” Kirk’s point about passion is important. It’s easy, and extremely tempting when you’re rationalizing your own lack of success, to assume successful people have some intangible quality—ideas, talent, drive, skills, creativity, etc.—that you don’t have.

You don’t have to find the motivation or willpower; you do what you need to do because that’s who you are.

Hopefully you see where this is going. Each little success is motivating. Each little success gives you confidence. The accumulation of small successes makes the process, um, maybe not fun, but definitely rewarding—and that’s all you need to keep going.

Earned success is the best motivational tool of all. That feeling, that knowledge, is hugely energizing because it’s based not on wishing and hoping and dreaming but on a reality—a reality you created. So forget the fire-walking. Forget the self-talk. Forget searching for, or paying for, the right kind of motivation. Tony is right in one way: All the motivation you need is already inside you. But you won’t tap into it by seizing a single moment of inspiration. You won’t stay motivated because you experienced one “aha!” moment. You’ll stay motivated when you find a process you trust and commit to working that process for as little as a week. Forget how far you need to go to reach your goal; just commit to following the process for a week.

Never forget that we all lack confidence. We all lack motivation. We all have insecurities, doubts, fears. All of us. We all say we want to achieve things, but we don’t really want to achieve them unless we are willing to take the necessary steps to achieve what we say we want.

Wanting something badly isn’t enough. No matter how badly you may want to achieve something, what matters more—a lot more—than the power of “why” is the power of “how.”

Choices are a problem, because choices force you to decide what you want to do. What happens when you turn “I want to” into “I have to”? You make it to work on time. Punctuality is nonnegotiable. Getting to work on time is not a goal; it’s a task. So is making dinner; you have no choice. So is taking care of your kids; it’s nonnegotiable.

That’s why the power of routine, something we’ll look at in detail later, is so important. When you create a routine, embrace that routine, and see the results of that routine, you stop negotiating with yourself. You see your routine as a task, in the best possible way: Your routine isn’t something you choose to do; it’s just what you do. And you stop making choices that don’t support your goals.

Everyone has goals. The people who actually achieve their goals create routines. They build systems. They consistently take the steps that, in time, will ensure they reach their ultimate goal. They don’t wish. They don’t hope. They just do what their plan says, consistently and without fail. They forget the goal and focus solely on the process. (We’ll talk a lot—and I do mean a lot—about processes later on.)

Compared with running 26 miles, being able to run only 1.5 miles feels anything but awesome. But who cares? Right now you aren’t focused on 26 miles. You don’t have to get to there. You have to care only about today. Because of that, your huge goal is no longer important. Your process is important—and where your process is concerned, you’re a success.

Again, the key isn’t to think, “I want people to like me.” That is your goal, but forget about your goal and just follow the process.

Don’t talk a lot. I know that sounds odd, because friendly people tend to be gregarious and outgoing. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that—but there’s a big difference between friendly and likable. Likable people already know what they know. They want to know what other people know. They ask questions. They ask for details. They care about what other people think, and they show it by listening. That makes the people they meet feel important. It makes the people they meet feel likable. (As well they should, because they are.) And it makes the people they meet like them for making them feel that way.

Don’t blame. Friends make mistakes. Employees don’t meet expectations. Vendors don’t deliver on time. It’s easy to bl...

Don’t try to impress.

Don’t interrupt.

Don’t control. At work, you may be the boss. You may be in charge. The buck may stop with you. Everywhere else, the only thing you really control is you. People who try to control other people—tell them what they should do, what they should think, what they should feel—have decided that their goals, their dreams, or even just their opinions are more important than everyone else’s. People like people who help. Don’t tell someone else what to do. Ask them how you can help them do what they want to do.

Don’t preach.

Don’t dwell on the past.

The past is just training; it doesn’t define you. Think about what went wrong, but only in terms of how you will make sure that next time you will get it right. Optimism—rational, reasoned, justifiable optimism—is contagious. And very, very likable.

That’s why, where your process is concerned, you don’t get to choose what you want to do. You get to choose your goal—but after that, what you

want to do is irrelevant. What matters is what you need to do to achieve your goal.

So don’t start unless you’re truly willing to pay the price.

Writing “Go jogging three days this week” on a Post-it doesn’t mean you have a process. What does “go jogging” mean? And which days will you run? How far? How fast? Instead of “go jogging,” here’s what your process should look like: Monday: Run 1.5 miles. Tuesday: Stretch (list the different stretches) for 20 minutes. Wednesday: Run 2 miles. Thursday: Walk at a pace of three miles per hour for 45 minutes. Friday: . . . A good process tells you precisely what you need to accomplish at every step along the way. That way you know exactly what to do, and you know when you have actually accomplished what you need to do.

supports feedback: Either you did what you planned to do (great!) or you didn’t (boo!).

Rework your schedule.

Look at the process you created and determine what changes you need to make to your current daily routine so you can reliably work that process. If you don’t, you will never succeed.

The goal isn’t unrealistic. The approach—the process—is unrealistic. Or say you want to amass tens of millions of dollars in wealth. If you aren’t willing to work to create something new and different, if you aren’t trying to do something Zuckerbergian, your goal isn’t the problem. Your approach is the problem. If you aren’t willing to find a new way to fill an ongoing and nearly universal need, if you aren’t willing to do something Netflixian, your goal isn’t the problem. Your approach is the problem.

So what is the best way to say no to yourself? It’s easy: Stop saying “can’t” and start saying “don’t.” It works. Science says so. Researchers conducted a study: One group was given a simple temptation and told to say, in the face of that temptation, “I can’t do (that).” The other group was told to say, “I don’t do (that).” What happened? Participants told to say “I can’t” gave in to the temptation 61 percent of the time. Participants told to say “I don’t” gave in to the temptation 36 percent of the time.